This was a student project by Kevin Hayes for Lisa Tilder's ARCH 441 course, Autumn 2007.
Greenhouse/Greenhouse is a project for a sustainable skyscraper that began with a study of the artificial environments inherent in tall buildings. By slicing a universal skyscraper into sections, the singular environment is turned into a series of nested micro-climates, challenging each block of residents to control the quality of green lifestyle they are faced with. To better understand the nebulous rhetoric that surrounds current ecological design practices, a list of green words were taken from 12 issues of Metropolis Magazine. These were rethought and illustrated to create new ways of understanding sustainable issues. The cartoons that this research produced developed into performative diagrams, turning the artificial environments of the skyscraper into a complex ecology. The nesting of multiple micro-climates allows the hotel to become an organic embassy for eco-tourists; they navigate through the urban agriculture maintained by the residents and through more exotic environments in the public spaces of the hotel. The main entry to the tower is defined by a journey through a forest of trees and steel columns, into a glass elevator containing a tree, exposing the level of artificiality that is overlooked in a typical tall building. The ecology of each block is defined by the feedback between the roof gardens and the gray water from each unit. The gardens are exposed to grow-lamps, powered by the exercise equipment within each block, while the gray water from each level is filtered through these green spaces. The water continues its cycle through a double curtain wall, obscuring or clarifying the view from each unit, depending on how intensely the residents pursue their idealistic lifestyle. The elevator ride for either program turns into a surprise mix of agriculture and urbanism. - Kevin Hayes
